Martian Core

A remote exploration drone named Nautilus landed three years ago on the surface of Mars for research purposes. Its main purpose was to drill deep below the surface and recover new data. A tunnel was bored fifty metres through the surface crust, deeper than any previous attempt. Nothing new was found, but instead something found the exploration drone and objected to its presence.

100,000 km away, aboard the control centre for Nautilus, a group of scientists realised something was wrong when attempting to manoeuvre her to another drilling location. The external cameras revealed the problem; a plantlike growth had emerged from the ground and wrapped itself around the Nautilus' tripod legs. As they watched, the blueish-red intruder continued on its way upwards, enveloping the camera in its path.

In response to this event, small human colonies have been built have built and located in orbit high above the Martian surface. Earth commissioned these to further research the unknown life form and attempt to capture a sample for research. The largest station, Alpha, hosts twelve scientists and a number of other support crew.

The second station, Beta, is linked to Alpha by a length of tunnel, but use of this tunnel is restricted to automatically controlled cargo drones. Alpha is out of bounds to the twenty five crew in Beta station. Earth control specified that 'top secret' analysis of Martian core samples were in place.

The plasma fission power core for the two stations is located in Beta and maintained by their engineers. It is a solid state unit the size of a standard earth bus and runs at two percent capacity for essential life and systems support. At fifty percent it could theoretically propel a transport shuttle from earth to Mars in fifty days, but the human body couldn't withstand the g-force.

The mission's chief scientist, Hermann Baum admired a close-up video feed of the Red planet from panoramic vidscreens in a dedicated viewing room. The surface showed no signs of life apart from the characteristic light coloured streaks caused by shifts in surface material.

A newly designed probe known as Nautilus II appeared on the screens, descending steadily toward the surface and finally landing in the exact same place Nautilus was 'eaten' by the growth. This time, the probe was equipped with very agile laser cutting beams and vice-like gripping arms to capture samples, and escape any hold as necessary.

Excited voices could be heard from the control room next door, but Baum remained staring at the vidscreens.

Soon after Nautilus II touched down, the surface developed several new streaks, showing that the rusty red dust was moving. Slowly, searching arms emerged and attached themselves to the craft. The scientists were shouting to each other, some urging that the craft leave immediately, others adamant to wait until the last possible second.

The cutting lasers were activated a short time before the growth could cover the external cameras. Three clean cuts were made at the surface, the writhing arms no longer attached to the unknown source below.
Gripping arms sprang into action, moving the samples into a reinforced titanium holding tank below Nautilus II's main body.

Everybody was dressed in contamination suits and several guards were armed with 'nanohammer' weapons, particularly designed to remove limbs to disable attackers while sealing the wound to avoid fluid spillage.
Nautilus II reached the airlock, and a couple of strong engineers went to fetch the cargo. The titanium tank was wheeled to the centre of the laboratory on a metre high goods trolley. The guards shifted anxiously on their feet, weapons ready.

Hermann Baum stepped forward and twisted the access lever to open the tank. The door quietly rotated open, allowing the everyone to see inside. He passed his biological life scanner over the samples, which registered a faint reading, but such a reading could be dismissed as recent death. He picked up some large forceps and lifted the three samples individually onto a working table. They fell with a wet thud and some blueish liquid dribbled out across the table and onto the floor.

With no threat evident, the guards had been dismissed and were patrolling the hallways as usual.
Teams set to work on analysis of the samples; dissecting, freezing, electrifying, and reacting with all kinds of chemicals. The scientists were fascinated by the varied and unusual results. So much so that nobody saw the remaining tank passenger crawl out and down onto the floor.

A foot long rodent like creature with dozens of blueish-red tentacles and one large unblinking eye made its way across the lab floor towards the spilt liquid. It paused to sample the liquid and then began to crawl up the leg of a scientist performing a dissection.

Seconds later the Martian had reached the man's waist and extended a dozen of its tentacles in various directions, smothering him completely. The single eye came to rest where the man's head had been and swivelled in all directions, absorbing the visual environment.

Baum saw the activity on a surveillance monitor from the next room. He pressed the alert button on his workstation to summon the patrolling guards and ran as quickly as he could in his contamination suit towards the main lab. From across the room he could see what remained of his colleague, now a pulsing mass with flailing tentacles.

The creature moaned as if in pain, and extended two horrible appendages towards Baum, apparently searching for another human host. A moment later the guards arrived. They stopped and stared for a moment in disbelief, allowing the creature to flail its waving tentacles in a massive arc towards them, knocking lab equipment to the floor with a loud crash.

The first guard readied his nanohammer, and aimed it at the nearest tentacle. He fired and scored a direct hit. The tentacle was severed and hit the back wall with a thud, allowing a clear path to the second one. While he reloaded his one shot cartridge, his fellow guard shot and disabled the second tentacle.

During the distraction the creature had integrated into the security console with several remaining appendages, and a warning siren began to sound. Baum looked to the nearest security console and saw that the access hatch to the interstation tunnel was being opened. Somehow the creature could control the functions of the station!

Alarm still sounding, the blast-proof security doors around the research station began to close. The tentacled creature moaned again, somewhat like a whale's call and its bottom half exploded into a shower of foul sticky liquid, smothering everything and everyone in a viscous ooze. Temporarily disabled, the crew were helpless to act.

Now half of its size, the remaining portion of the creature slithered through the blast door as it came to a close. several tentacles were severed as it narrowly missed the chance. On the security screens the creature could be seen scurrying down the tunnel towards unknowing occupants of Beta.

Wrestling himself free of the ooze, Baum brought up a text communication input prompt on the nearest console. He punched in a message and set its status to Emergency:

'ATTENTION, MAXIMUM SECURITY ALERT. Alien life-form has breached interstation transport tunnel and is making its way to Beta. Deadly force encouraged'

The message never reached Beta, the creature had disabled all communications. A Beta engineer walking near the interstation tunnel access noticed the door was open even though the shuttle had already made its daily visit to Alpha. He walked over to the open door and peered down inside. Something was moving towards him and it looked to be in a hurry. The engineer tried to close the door with the controls, but they were disabled. Seconds later the thing was upon him, tentacles reaching in all directions.

With its new host, the creature headed for the level containing the plasma fission power unit. Once in the reactor room its eye scanned the twenty metre structure and found the main control interface. It extended tentacles along the width of the reactor and onto the control interface.

The monitoring displays showed an increase in reactor core power, rising from the normal two percent, upto ten, twenty, forty-five, sixty percent. The reactor wasn't designed for such a sudden increase in output. Automatic alarms sounded and an automated voice came over the public address system.

'ALL CREW EVACUATE, REACTOR OVERLOAD. REPEAT: ALL CREW TO LEAVE THE STATION IMMEDIATELY'

This was the first indication to the remaining Beta crew that anything was wrong. They quickly assembled at the nearest emergency airlock, behind which was an escape pod for such an emergency.
The crew member in charge entered the pin to release the airlock, nothing happened. Trying and failing twice more, he realised it was hopeless.

Just then the ship's ionic thrusters came into life, capable of propelling the station with many times more force than could kill a man. The station was never designed to be moved out of orbit while the inter-station tunnel was connected, but still the thrusters were set to full power by the creature in the reactor room.

Immediately, massive g-forces pulsed through Beta, sending its unsecured human contents hurtling to the back wall. Nobody would have survived more than twenty seconds.

With such terrific force, the inter-station tunnel came apart like a twig snapping from a tree. Alpha station experienced a brief tug and the slamming of redundant airlocks, but that was all. The alarm stopped and the blast doors started to open, control was restored to the scientists.

Having cleaned themselves of the putrid fluid left by the creature, the crew assembled in front of the display screens which overlooked Mars. A tiny outline of Beta could be made out, surrounded by overwhelming light from the ionic thrusters. The station was going to impact with Mars very soon and at a tremendous speed. Baum ordered everybody to head to the escape pod immediately.

Ten minutes later the entire crew was aboard the cramped escape pod and under full thrust to exit the Martian orbit to a safe distance from the imminent impact. Contact was made with Earth to arrange docking at the nearest international space station. They could not see what was unfolding below them, but a twelve inch colour monitor in the escape pod was receiving a live feed from Alpha's cameras.

Baum estimated that Beta was only a few minutes from impact. A massive halo of light surrounding the craft lit up the screen, the plasma fusion core must be running at nearly full capacity. Pieces began to tear off the craft, flying out into space like a trail of litter.

Movement could be seen beyond Beta's glow, the Red surface was rippling with life, sensing the delivery. Dust was being unsettled as far as the visible horizons. Something broke the surface. Tentacles! Thousands upon thousands of writhing, disgusting tentacles began to reach skyward towards Beta like a mother expecting a child to run into her arms.

Thirty seconds before impact the tentacles had grown in length, some easily dwarfing high rise buildings in size.
Impact was imminent. Three... Two... One...

The halo of light surrounding Beta instantly spread the width and breadth of the visible surface, the escape pod monitor couldn't even begin to cope with the spectacle. When the light had faded, there was no sign of Beta, nor anything but a settling cloud of dust.

Four days later the escape pod reached the international space station. There was a meeting in progress with the main Earth embassies. Soon after the impact, large fields of plasma fusion energy were being reported, growing steadily larger by the day.

Now with immense energy reserves, intelligence deep inside Mars could act out its plan. Unseen eyes stared deep into space, waiting patiently.